June 18, 2015 – 2015 report published by the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine on Post-Vietnam Agent Orange contaminated C-123 aircraft opened eligibility for disability compensation for as many as 1,500 to 2,100 Air Force and Air Force Reserve Personnel who served as flight, medical and ground maintenance crew members on C-123 aircraft.

June 11, 2015 – A VA Inspector General report in 2010 found that fiduciaries had stolen nearly $15 million from veterans between 1998 and 2010, and a more recent review found persistent problems with the program and millions more stolen. Testimony from the VA Inspector General’s office also highlighted egregious examples of fraud.

April 2015

April 9, 2015 – “A year after Americans recoiled at new revelations that sick veterans were getting sicker while languishing on waiting lists — and months after the Department of Veterans Affairs instituted major reforms — government data shows that the number of patients facing long waits at VA facilities has not dropped at all.”

April 9, 2015 – Recent suicide of former Army Staff Sgt. Michelle R. Langhorst, who served nine years in the Army, brings to light issues tormenting female veterans. Ms. Langhorst’s death stood out for two main reasons: she was female and she had been receiving behavioral health treatment at the VA for at least a couple of years.

April 7, 2015 – Veterans Legal Services Clinic at Yale Law School filed a law suit against Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert A. McDonald and the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, asks that the VA promptly decide disability compensation appeals that have been pending more than a year, when the case involves a veteran facing medical or financial hardship.

April 6, 2015 – Since 1984, Green Beret Tommy Shoemaker has served in many war theaters — Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Bosnia — and is still an Army reservist. He came home from Iraq to Monroe, Louisiana, in late 2006 with a bum leg and a disabled brain. Suffering from mood swings, memory loss, anger, and depression, all signs of CTE, or chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a crippling neurological disorder caused by repeated blows to the head.

March 4, 2015 – Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald testified before the veterans’ affairs panel of the House Appropriations Committee and offered a laundry list of figures and some projections indicating that whatever victories the VA may achieve in the next year or so, the pieces already are set for the making of another one. He reported an increasing number of veterans applying for VA care, which is already striving to meet the current demands of aging veterans. He projected that in 2017, the VA will process 1.4 million claims detailing nearly 6 million medical problems.

March 2, 2015 – The VA could recoup awards and bonuses already paid to its employees largely at the department secretary’s discretion, under a bill that could come to a House vote as soon as Monday evening. While the repayment authority would apply to all levels of VA employees, it likely would be used only rarely, “primarily to recoup payments made to senior VA employees who were determined to have committed a serious violation of the agency’s standards of conduct.” The authority would apply retroactively, generally up to six years back, it said. “In addition, the authority would only affect current employees of VA; employees who resigned or retired would be exempt from recoupment.”

March 1, 2015 – Law makers are puzzled as to why veterans are not seeking treatment outside VA through the Veterans Choice Program. Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald told the senators that about 500,000 VA beneficiaries have called about the program but those calls resulted in just 30,000 appointments or clearances, meaning the vets’ request was resolved. The figures come as Congress is weighing the department’s budget request for the coming year and drilling down on the job performance of McDonald.

2/25/15 –The Veterans Benefits Administration provides $95 billion of entitlements each year to veterans, including disability money, pensions to vets and their surviving spouses and death benefits — even American flags at veterans’ funerals. But a an investigation has found widespread mismanagement of claims, resulting in veterans being denied the benefits they earned, and many even dying before they get an answer from the VA.

2/23/15 – Caregivers and other representatives from Disabled American Veterans converge on Capitol Hill to push for expanded caregiver assistance benefits. VA currently awards monthly stipends of around $2,300 to around 7,000 spouses and loved ones who provide health care assistance to injured veterans, but all of them are to troops injured in the wars after Sept. 11. Congress approved the program back in 2010, in response to the financial stress being put on families of young wounded service members returning from war.

2/24/15 – Secretary Robert McDonald corrected a misstatement that he made last month on the news about his own military record after the statement was questioned by several retired officers. The Secretary apologized. The American Legion expressed disappointment.

2/23/15 – After more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, a new generation of veterans is serving in Congress. The legislative branch currently includes at least 22 veterans of those conflicts, a new high even as the total number of military veterans in Congress declines.

2/20/15 – The Oakland office of Veterans Affairs improperly filed and then lost about 14,000 unprocessed veterans benefit claims, some dating back to the 1990s. The Office of Inspector General was tipped off to the sloppy practices at the Oakland office by Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Oroville.

January 2015

1/6/15 – Veterans discharged after sexual trauma push for VA health benefits. Until recently, veterans who were involuntarily discharged early were not eligible for any VA medical care or other benefits because they are told they did not serve long enough. It’s a common problem for women and men who leave the service early due to sexual trauma.

December 2014

12/31/14 – The Veterans Affairs Department boasted another dramatic drop in its backlog of benefits claims in 2014, but will need an extra boost in coming months to meet its goal of zeroing out the payout delays by the end of 2015. The backlog — the number of first-time VA benefits claims unresolved for more than four months — sits at around 245,000 cases, according to departmental data. That’s down more than 160,000 cases in 2014 and more than 250,000 cases since the start of 2013.

12/30/14 – An Air Force staff sergeant wounded in a chemical weapon accident in 2004, willingly helped the military study his wounds. From his bed in a Philadelphia burn ward, as blisters from sulfur-mustard agent erupted on his skin, he signed a waiver allowing doctors to gather his body fluids to experiment with new laboratory methods for confirming chemical exposure. When Sergeant Mould accepted medical retirement in 2006, he was suffering a cascade of health problems, but he said he had been assured of long-term monitoring. Instead, he said, “the Air Force never contacted me again. I’ve never been tracked.”

12/6/14 – “What do American troops, who have spent much of the past 15 years in desert camouflage, do when they come home? Compared with veterans of previous wars, they are more likely to work for the federal government, where almost half of all new hires are now veterans. They are more likely to be disabled. And they are less likely to be in the labour force. These last two trends mean that the financial cost of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars will remain high long after the final bullets have been fired.”

12/3/14 – Maine resident and military sexual assault survivor Ruth Moore said Tuesday she is heartened by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ decision to expand mental health services to reservists and National Guard members who were sexually assaulted while on inactive duty.

12/3/14 – A new drug holds the potential to cure hepatitis C in tens of thousands of veterans but will require billions in new spending to cover the cost. The department has requested $1.3 billion from Congress to buy Sovaldi, a drug approved last year for the treatment of the potentially deadly liver disease. But the money will only buy treatment for about 30,000 infected vets while as many as 114,000 might need it, said David Ross, director of the VA’s HIV, hepatitis C, and public health pathogens programs.

Learn how to file an eClaim through eBenefits. VA now offers the step-by-step eClaim application process video in three short, easy-to-watch parts to make it easier for viewers to quickly review important claim application information. The 3-part series reviews the same information as the long Step-by-Step video, but in more manageable segments. Check out all three segments now by clicking the links below or visiting the VBA YouTube Channel.

April 2014

4/5/14 – The shooting rampage at Fort Hood has once again focused attention on the military’s ­mental-health system, which, despite improvement efforts, has struggled to address a tide of psychological problems brought on by more than a decade of war. Experts say problems persist in part due to a nationwide shortage of mental-health providers and lack of technology and science for reliably identifying people at risk of doing harm to themselves or others.

4/2/14 – Statement from Secretary of Defense Hagel on Fort Hood – Today’s shooting was a terrible tragedy for the Fort Hood community, the Department of Defense, and for the nation. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. And my sympathies go out to this strong and resilient community, which has experienced this kind of senseless violence all too recently. There is nothing more important to us as an institution than the safety and well-being of our people, and for that reason I am grateful to all the first responders who rushed to the scene. We will closely monitor the situation at Fort Hood and stay informed by what investigators and law enforcement personnel learn about the shooting.

4/1/14 – The Defense Department believes military children serve their country alongside their service member parents, DOD’s director of the office of family policy/children and youth said. When military children serve, they do so by making sacrifices when parents are deployed, through frequent moves, starting new schools and making new friends on a continuing basis, Barbara Thompson said in a recent interview with The Pentagon Channel for the Month of the Military Child that’s being celebrated in April.

March 2014

Many studies over the past quarter-century show that Veterans and others with chronic PTSD are at higher risk for heart disease, along with other physical illnesses. Dr. Stephen Sidney, with Kaiser Permanente, wrote in a recent editorial in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: “Overall, there are considerable data supporting an association that is likely causal between PTSD and coronary heart disease outcomes.”

Under current VA regulations, Veterans who are prescribed a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine receive an automatic rating of 50 percent disability rating if approved. In fiscal 2013, veterans receiving compensation for sleep apnea jumped by 26 percent, or more than 29,000 beneficiaries, VA data show. As of Oct. 1, a total of 143,278 vets were rated disabled by sleep apnea, and 89 percent of their ratings were at least 50 percent.

Military veterans who say they were sickened by lingering amounts of the herbicide Agent Orange aboard repurposed airplanes after the Vietnam War now have some strong scientific support for their claims. According to Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, studies support the fact that veteran’s who flew in planes contaminated with any dioxin or components of Agent Orange were more likely to be exposed than those servicemen who had boots on the ground in Vietnam.

February 2014

The House Veterans Affairs Committee is continuing to press the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs over its struggles with securing the data of millions of veterans. In early January, a software glitch exposed the personal information of more than 5,000 veterans to anyone who could log onto the system.

VA maintains a list of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships associated with military service in Vietnam and possible exposure to Agent Orange based on military records. These records may help Veterans who served aboard ships find out if they may qualify for benefits.

A recent VA surveillance project highlighting the relationship among traumatic brain injury, posttraumatic stress disorder, and seizures indicates that Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan diagnosed with seizures are more likely to also have suffered TBI, PTSD, or both. The research, conducted by investigators at VA’s Southeast Epilepsy Center of Excellence, raises questions about the types of seizures these Veterans are facing and the ways in which they are diagnosed and treated. Patients with seizures are are typically prescribed anti-epileptic drugs, which, while effective for epilepsy, provide little to no benefit for other types of seizures.

January 2014

January 2, 2014 – VA’s planned disability rule changes would penalize veterans who do not have access to a computer or the internet by relegating paper-initiated claims to a second-class status. The proposed change would assign paper claims a file date from the day they are completed. Meanwhile, electronic claims would have an assigned date of when the veteran executes an incomplete version online, as long as it is fully completed within a year. The dates are significant because any disability compensation, once awarded, will be retroactive to the effective filing date.

November 18, 2013 – According to a report released this month by advocates for women and men who were sexually harassed and attacked while serving in uniform, survivors of sexual trauma are far less likely than other veterans to have their disability benefits approved. In 2011, a V.A. review of about 400 PTSD claims related to sexual trauma found that about one in four had been “prematurely denied” with incomplete evidence.

November 18, 2013 – Recent information shows that more Vietnam veterans are reporting symptoms of late-onset PTSD. Mental health specialists believe that as the Vietnam Veteran population ages— the average age is 64—and experiences significant life events like retirement, deaths of civilian family and friends, and children growing-up can trigger a “late onset” PTSD, although many experts believe the PTSD was there all along.

October 9, 2013 – Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki told lawmakers last Wednesday that about 3.8 million veterans will not receive disability compensation next month if the partial government shutdown continues into late October. Shinseki spelled out some of the dire consequences of a longer-term shutdown in testimony before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Short term, there’s been a delay in processing claims by an average of about 1,400 per day since the shutdown began Oct. 1. That has stalled the department’s efforts to reduce the backlog of disability claims pending for longer than 125 days. In all, more than $6 billion in benefits to about 5 million veterans and their families would be halted with an extended shutdown.

September 2013

September 25, 2013 – According to USA Today, a government shutdown could force as many as 62,000 employees for the Department of Veterans Affairs to take temporary furloughs. Among those furloughed would be 20,000 staff members who review compensation claims and handle life insurance policies.

September 15, 2013 – On Sept. 6 the Department of Veterans Affairs adopted as a final rule its proposal to amend its adjudication regulations by clarifying and expanding the terminology regarding presumptive service connections for acute and subacute peripheral neuropathy, associated with exposure to certain herbicide agents. VA will apply this ruling in re-adjudicating certain previously denied claims as required by court orders in Nehmer v. Department of Veterans Affairs.

September 13, 2013 – A newly published Air Force document includes all sexual assault convictions from 2010 through August of this year. It marks the first time the service has attempted to release such a list as it faces criticism for its handling of sex assault cases.

September 12, 2013 – VA proposes rules on payouts for Lejeune water contamination. The law mandates that the VA provide health care to certain veterans and their families who were at Camp Lejeune, N.C., in the last half of the 20th century because of illnesses arising from consumption of contaminated water there.

September 10, 2013 – American Legion national commander Daniel Dellinger told a joint hearing before the House and Senate veterans’ affairs committees that veterans not only deserve timely decisions but accurate decisions. The VA’s reports place the accuracy rate in the mid-80s, Dellinger noted. But the Legion’s action review teams working with VA regional offices are finding error rates as high as two-thirds.

September 4, 2013 – Just getting an appointment with VA healthcare system has required a veteran having to navigate a bureaucratic labyrinth of VA protocols that included waiting for weeks to see a physician whose evaluation and approval was needed to get a referral to a specialist.

August 2, 2013 – A week after the Pentagon issued an annual report showing a 37 percent increase in cases of unwanted sexual contact in the military, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered screenings of military recruiters, drill instructors, and personnel responsible for assisting sexual assault victims or in sensitive positions. Dozens have been removed from jobs as a result of the screenings.

July 2013

July 26, 2013 – Soil and water testing found dioxin and another harmful components of the notorious U.S. military defoliant (Agent Orange) around about two dozen rusted containers — some marked with Dow Chemical Co.’s logo — that were discovered by Japanese crews digging at what is now a local soccer field in Okinawa City. The Air Force has said the soccer field land was once part of Kadena Air Bace and was returned to local control in 1987. The United States has repeatedly denied the substances were ever present on Okinawa.

July 23, 2013 – Last year, in his speech before the VFW’s annual meeting, Shinseki vowed that the share of backlogged claims in the system would be no higher than 40 percent when he returned this year. Instead, it sits at 65 percent, the same level as a year ago. Last month, Shinseki became the longest serving VA secretary in U.S. history, and the longest serving veterans administrator since the end of the Vietnam War.

July 12, 2013 – The U.S. Army has conceded a significant loss of records documenting battlefield action and other operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and has launched a global search to recover and consolidate field records from the wars. Among the missing records are nearly all those from the 82nd Airborne Division, which was deployed multiple times during the wars. Dozens of Army and National Guard units had lost or failed to keep required field records, in some cases impeding the ability of veterans to obtain disability benefits.

July 11, 2013 – Between 1972 and 1982, about 1,500 men and women served aboard 34 C-123s airplanes that were previously deployed to drop more than 10 million gallons of Agent Orange to destroy enemy cover and crops during the Vietnam War. Veterans sick from post-war Agent Orange exposure are continued to be denied benefits. The Air Force stated that any potential Agent Orange exposures on C-123s after Vietnam were “unlikely to have caused harm.” The Air Force shredded and smelted the planes in 2010, destroying any remaining evidence.

July 10, 2013 – VA has updated the list of U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships that operated in Vietnam, adding more ships and expanding information for others. There are now 285 ships on the list. The list can help Vietnam-era Veterans find out if they qualify for presumption of Agent Orange exposure when seeking disability compensation for related diseases.

June 23, 2013 -In its latest report on sexual assault, the Pentagon estimated that there was an increase in reported cases of sexual assault. Of those cases, the Pentagon says, 53 percent involved attacks on men, mostly by other men. Advocates say their plight shows that sexual assault has risen not because there are more women in the ranks but because sexual violence is often tolerated.

June 22, 2013 – In the summer of 2013, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) released the highly anticipated Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), fifth edition entitled DSM-5. One of the biggest changes the newly released document holds for the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD is its change in classification from “anxiety disorders” to “trauma and stressor-related disorders.”

This new classification of PTSD in the DSM-5 serves to provide a more defined look at the triggers associated with PTSD

May 10, 2013 – VA says it doesn’t need new law to help victims of military sexual assault. VA officials have promised that denied sexual trauma claims will be reviewed if the veteran wants, but they have not yet announced the process for requesting the review.

May 9, 2013 – Affairs got almost $126,000 in performance bonuses during a five-year period in which the agency imposed an illegal rule that drew the threat of sanctions from a federal appeals court.

May 8, 2013 – A new study from the Defense Department demonstrates a depressing truth estimating that about 26,000 people in the military were sexually assaulted in the 2012 fiscal year, up from about 19,000 in the same period a year before. The study also suggests that the great majority of sexual assault victims do not report the attacks for fear of retribution or lack of faith that the military will prosecute these crimes.

The Ruth Moore Act, introduced by Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D-ME), would amend title 38, United States Code, to improve the disability compensation evaluation procedure of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs for veterans with mental health conditions related to military sexual trauma (MST). According to a press release distributed by the office of Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, the Ruth Moore Act would make it easier for veterans who are victims of sexual assault in the military to get the benefits due to them.

In his testimony, Matthew D. Hill, attorney at Hill & Ponton and Treasurer of NOVA, demonstrated that a vote in favor of the Ruth Moore Act would be in the best interest of both veterans and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA).

April 13, 2013- Nearly two decades later, after the U.S. Army discovered hazardous chemicals dumped at Fort Gillem seeping into residential wells in neighboring Forest Park in the early 1990s, there may still be hazardous chemicals seeping into water supplies and migrating into the air residents breathe. The chemicals of greatest concern are the industrial solvents 1,1,2,2-tetrachloroethane (TeCA), classified as a possible human carcinogen, and trichloroethylene (TCE), a known carcinogen. Laboratory studies have associated both chemicals with liver damage and neurological effects. Army testing of surface water south of the base found TeCA, TCE and lead in concentrations above the level the state considers acceptable. In one location, TeCA was measured at 19 parts per billion, far greater than the acceptable limit of .17 ppb.

April 3, 2013 – “Take Back the Night,” an annual event where survivors of sexual assault and their supporters take to a podium and share their stories of trauma is healing for survivors. “Matthew Hill, a veterans benefits attorney who helped Herron secure 100 percent disability benefits in 2010 on the basis of post traumatic stress disorder caused by military sexual trauma, said male rape is severely under-reported, not just because of the stigma associated with it, but because the process of seeking justice can be equally as traumatic.”

March 2013

March 26, 2013 — Nearly 44 percent of service men and women returning home to civilian life reported readjustment challenges. Among the recommendations for the Department of Defense and VA includes to align their treatment policies with accepted standards in the civilian community, to include restricting access to firearms for troops and veterans considered at-risk for suicide.

Although the Department of Veterans Affairs is protected from the budgetary ax known as sequestration, veterans are not. Programs supporting veterans — on issues from housing to mental health — that are operated by agencies other than the VA are subject to the cuts.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki vowed four years ago that all claims would be processed within 125 days with 98% accuracy by 2015. However, Veterans representatives told Congress recently that they doubt the Department of Veterans Affairs will make significant progress in reducing the backlog for more than a million unprocessed benefits claims by then.

There are many veterans suffering from PTSD, including women service members traumatized by sexaul assault suffered within the military that have been improperly diagnosed with personality disorder or adjustment disorder and have been denied veterans benefits. Congressman Tim Walz is pressing for legislation that would require the Department of Defense to review the service records of 31,000 veterans discharged after military doctors diagnosed them with “personality disorder” or “adjustment disorder.”

A clinical neuropsychologist indicated that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have had a significant impact on the number of soldiers with severe brain traumas than ever before. Early diagnosis and intervention is key to helping veteran’s regain health.

An 81-year-old Marine from Coral Springs, Florida, waited five years for a hearing and he now has to wait weeks or months to know whether a VA appeals judge will grant his claim for pension. The St. Petersburg regiona office, serving all of Florida, has the steepest claims backlow in the nation, the VA reports.

Sources have reported that the Pentagon is likely to uphold that large amounts of potentially harmful chemicals were buried in Okinawa Island during the 1960’s and 70’s, but will likely dismiss claims that the toxic Vietnam War defoliant Agent Orange was among them.

January 2013

New research suggests that Veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may be suffering from the 20-year-old set of symptoms known as Gulf War Syndrome.

Veteran’s health concerns could be related to smoke from one of the hundreds of burn pits that dotted Iraq and Afghanistan during the course of the two wars. A new Department of Veterans Affairs registry, mandated by Congress, will be used to try to determine if there is a link between the burn pits and long-term health problems. If researchers find certain illnesses are linked to exposure to burn pits, then the VA would be more likely to declare those illnesses a presumptive condition, eliminating the need for a veteran to prove that his or her illness is service-related.

Former U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska, was nominated to be Secretary of Defense by President Barack Obama at the White House on Monday, January 7, 2013, in Washington, DC. Will he make the perfect candidate to bridge Pentagon and VA operations? If confirmed, the two-time Purple Heart recipient will be the first noncommissioned officer to lead the Department of Defense.

An improved eBenefits self-service web portal provides registered users with secure online information and access to a variety of military and veterans benefits resources. The latest release, eBenefits 4.3, allows for easy navigation of the online disability compensation claim submission process and allows Veterans to view processing times for each phase of their claim.

What the nation owes each year to veterans who are disabled during service has more than doubled since 2000, rising from $14.8 billion to $39.4 billion in 2011, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Reasons for rising costs include: multiple deployments, changes in regulations for veterans exposed to Agent Orange or veterans diagnosed with Gulf War syndrome, worsening illnesses in aging veterans, and a change in rules associated with post-traumatic stress disorder.

The VA inspector general reported that 824 of the VA’s 7,011 full-time-equivalent (FTE) specialty physicians apparently aren’t doing enough work. The impact, of course, is that hundreds of under-utilized doctors can contribute to longer waits for appointments and other frustrations suffered by the nation’s veterans, who are depending on the VA for tax-payer funded health care this year.

The Veterans Benefits Management System (VBMS) slowed to a crawl last month due to sluggish response times for claims examiners trying to access veterans’ files stored on remote servers. Currently, only 5% of claims examiners are using the system. The department needs to develop a plan to permanently fix the problem as VA rolls out VBMS nationwide.

A proposed regulation change to add five presumptive medical conditions to a list of diseases associated with traumatic brain injury would make it easier for veterans receive benefit and health care from VA.

A bill to provide a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for disabled veterans and survivors that had been blocked by a Republican Sentor, passed the Senate on November 13, 2012, meaning that the 1.7 percent increase is expected to be included in checks to be sent to veterans in January 2013. The increase would mean an additional $500 in benefits for veterans and their families.

As the VA attemps to modernize its claims process by improving training, creating special teams to handle complex claims and replacing paper with digital technology, they are asking our veterans, who have sacrificed so much for our nation, to be patient while the changes are made. As of Sept. 22, the VA had nearly 900,000 claims awaiting decisions. The VA hopes to break the backlog of claims by 2015. Our veterans deserve better than this.

Dozens of Vietnam-era veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange while serving in country, surrounding countries, or the rivers or waters surrounding Vietnam continue to present a big health concern due to diseases and illnesses residual to the effect of the toxic chemical. Many of these veterans that are diagnosed with a presumptive condition related to Agent Orange may be eligible for VA disability compensation.

President Obama nominates William Greenberg as a Judge to the United States Court of Appeal for Veterans Claims. Mr. Greenberg received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 2011 and was named New Jersey Lawyer of the Year in 2009 by the New Jersey Law Journal.

Exploding workload adds to the Paperwork Mountain at Veterans Affairs, and adds delay to the processing of the veteran’s claims. Veterans filed more than 1.3 million claims in 2011, double the number of 2001. The department says about 45 percent of recent veterans are seeking benefits, each with about 11 to 15 medical issues, vastly higher than the historical rate after World War II and Vietnam.

The Army has lost, destroyed, or has not kept accurate (if any) field records from Iraq and Afghanistan, two of the nation’s most protracted wars. It has been reported that recordkeeping breakdown was especially acute in the early years of the Iraq war, when insurgents deployed improvised bombs with devastating effects on U.S. soldiers now seeking benefit claims.

Big pay and benefits decisions awaits Congress. Congress will return from the November elections to face unfinished business vital to the military and veterans — one of the issues is ensuring veterans get the same 1.7 percent cost-of-living adjustment going to Social Security beneficiaries and military retirees.

Inappropriate drug use found at VA. More than one in four older veterans in nursing homes were taking antipsychotic medications, with more than 40 percent of those veterans having no documented related diagnosis.

A recent VA report on post-traumatic stress disorder revealed that nearly 30 percent of veterans who served in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and treated at VA hospitals were diagnosed with PTSD.

The benefit known as Total Disability due to Individual Unemployability (TDIU) grants the veteran the equivalent of a 100 percent rating, even if their true rating is less than 100 percent.

VA issues final rule extending the statutory period to December 31, 2016 during which undiagnosed illnesses and multi-symptom disorders most often associated with Gulf War Syndrome will be presumed as service-connected diseases.

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